Public Release: 9-Jan-2017 University of Edinburgh Children born to mothers who take heartburn medication during pregnancy may have a greater risk of developing asthma, research suggests. Those whose mothers had been prescribed medicines to treat acid reflux during pregnancy were more likely to be treated for asthma in childhood, a review of studies…
The diversity of pathology of severe paediatric asthma demonstrates that the one-size-fits-all approach characterising many guidelines is inappropriate. The term “asthma” is best used to describe a clinical syndrome of wheeze, chest tightness, breathlessness, and sometimes cough, making no assumptions about underlying pathology. Before personalising treatment, it is essential to make the diagnosis correctly and optimise basic management. Clinicians must determine exactly what type of asthma each child has. We are moving from describing symptom patterns in preschool wheeze to describing multiple underlying phenotypes with implications for targeting treatment. Many new treatment options are available for school age asthma, including biological medicines targeting type 2 inflammation, but a paucity of options are available for non-type 2 disease. The traditional reliever treatment, shortacting β2 agonists, is being replaced by combination inhalers containing inhaled corticosteroids a
Involving patients in all stages of health data research is a noble aim; however,
there are not too many examples of it being successfully put into practice particularly
not in real-time pandemic surveillance. In November, 2020, the Early Pandemic Evaluation
and Enhanced Surveillance of COVID-19 (EAVE II) team created a unique collaboration,
inviting a Public Advisory Group (PAG) of 15 patient and public contributors to work
alongside university and Public Health Scotland staff to provide vital perspectives
of the public on all areas of their COVID-19 research.